Official says evidence being taken from gas plant

Published 10:38 pm, Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Federal investigators are concerned that state and local officials on the site of Sunday's explosion in Middletown have mishandled crucial clues to its origin.

Daniel Horowitz, director of public affairs for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, said Wednesday while the team from Washington has been kept away from crucial areas around the blast site, officials from O&G Industries have had free access that could threaten the integrity of evidence gathered.

He said the CSB has been kept on the sidelines while state and local officials have taken evidence away from the site and denied them access to it.

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But the Middletown fire marshal in charge of the disaster scene said Wednesday evidence is being thoroughly mapped and photographed under the supervision of the State Police Major Crime Squad and the State Fire Marshal's Office before it's removed to a nearby location under cover from the weather.

The general contractor and minority owner of the plant, O&G Industries of Torrington, which had declined comment since the Sunday incident, said Wednesday individual subcontractors on the site were responsible for the safety of their personnel.

Horowitz said the CSB has not been informed about basic issues on the scene, including the location where evidence -- seized as part of a search warrant that expires at 12:01 a.m. Thursday -- was found and where it is being stored.

Horowitz, whose agency has been caught in a turf war among the local, state and federal agencies combing through the rubble, warned the disruption of the site could threaten the search for a cause. Evidence gathered so far includes a camera, a gas detector and compressed-gas cylinders.

While local fire investigators have authority over the location, officials from the federal Department of Labor and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as well as the CSB are there, plus local and state police who restrict access to the blast site at a forward command post.

The Chemical Safety Board, which as recently as last Thursday warned of the need for major changes in the way construction crews clean new natural gas pipelines in a process called purging, said the evidence could be major keys to discovering the origin of the late morning blast Sunday that killed five workers and injured more than two dozen.

Both local Middletown police and state police officials deferred comment to Deputy Middletown Fire Marshal Al Santostefano, the spokesman for the overall evidence-recovery effort, who said Wednesday he believes the issues have finally been settled with the chemical safety investigators.

Santostefano said O&G crews were involved in collecting parts of the damaged power plant that were blocking access roads around the billion-dollar plant. "There was quite a bit of debris blown into the street, so O&G, in conjunction with police and firefighters, were involved in removing it," Santostefano said.

He said O&G supervisors were involved in examining the structural integrity of the 95-foot-tall power house. "With their expertise in building, they just took visuals of what was left standing. They were some upper-management people who did a walk around to see how the building looked."

He said that the O&G officials were not allowed near the blast area or in the power house, which covers the two gas-fired turbines that the gas lines feed. He said the gathered evidence remains on the plant site. It has been mapped where it was found, photographed and tagged.

Hearst Connecticut Newspapers reported Wednesday the blast site was in a so-called courtyard area, outside the power house and between two venting lines leading to the 215-foot-tall exhaust stacks.

Santostefano said investigators on Wednesday removed cylinders of compressed gas from the site.

He said currently there are plans to vent gas from pipelines near the plant sometime Thursday afternoon, depending on the weather. The venting, supervised by the Algonquin gas line, the state Department of Environmental Protection and local fire marshals, won't go forward if it's snowing or overcast.

Officials believe some kind of spark or detonation occurred at around 11:17 a.m. Sunday, igniting natural gas that blew up in a fireball that destroyed the 95-foot-tall power house and sent concussion waves up to 30 miles away.

In a release Wednesday, O&G said the company "did not perform the majority of the specialized work, which included, among other things, mechanical, electrical, and piping," the statement said. "O&G subcontracted this work to qualified companies who specialize in these areas. Each of these major contractors was required to have and adhere to their own safety plan, as well as having a safety officer on site during the performance of their work. Safety personnel from all major contractors and O&G regularly perform safety inspections on the site."